It’s a good bet that Charlie Villanueva will end up back with the Mavericks on a deal for the minimum salary, tweets Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com. MacMahon wrote last month that the Mavs would welcome him back if he were to play for that amount, and Villanueva has spoken of his desire to play for coach Rick Carlisle again. There’s plenty more from the Southwest Division, where all five teams made the playoffs this past season even before the summer’s two most talked–about free agents agreed to go there:
- Beno Udrih‘s full salary of more than $2.17MM is guaranteed since he remained on the Grizzlies roster through Sunday. It had been partially guaranteed for only $923K, as the schedule of salary guarantee dates shows.
- Mike Conley triggered a $200K bonus because the Grizzlies went to the second round of the playoffs this past season, so his cap figure for this coming season goes up by that amount, bringing it to $9,588,426, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link).
- Rockets draft-and-stash point guard Sergio Llull has signed an extension with Real Madrid of Spain that runs until 2021, the team announced (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). Llull rejected reported overtures from Houston to join the NBA for this coming season, though his new deal does include a lower NBA buyout.
- The Mavs will soon announce the hiring of Nick Van Exel as the team’s D-League coach, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com.
- Pelicans free agent Jimmer Fredette is mulling an offer from Italy’s Olimpia Milano, sources tell Paola De Persis of Sportando. Fredette would nonetheless prefer to stay in the NBA, De Persis notes.